PeopleStar Podcast_Tony Perlingieri: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

PeopleStar Podcast_Tony Perlingieri: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

PeopleStar Podcast Intro:
Welcome to the PeopleStar Podcast. We deliver leadership perspectives from industry experts on their people, architecture, routines, and culture as they solve HRs newest challenges. And now your host, Julie Rieken.

Julie Rieken:
Good day! Julie Rieken, the host of the PeopleStar Podcast, and it is an extreme pleasure today to welcome Tony Perlingieri, he is an extreme leader in HR, has a wealth of background, and is currently the Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief HR consultant for AWP, best in class, HR Consulting LLC out of New York. Tony, you have a lot of background and experience, and I'm super excited to welcome you today. We have an exciting discussion, I think. Welcome!

Tony Perlingieri:
Thank you very much, Julie. I very much appreciate the invitation and the time invested today and look forward to chatting with you and really talking about everything from soup to nuts, about resources in the business world.

Julie Rieken:
Thank you. Cool. So Tony and I have talked about an agenda and we found three things, plus three more things that we think are going to be super relevant and we're excited to talk about them today. So the first three things we've got three things we want to talk about, about the state of HR, and the types of HR leaders of the past, present, and future, and why we think these three types of leaders are so important to talk about and the three kinds that there are today. And Tony, you outlined these three for me, and I'm really excited to hear you tell this story about the three types of HR leaders that exist and why you think one of them is the most relevant kind of leader today.

Tony Perlingieri:
Very good. Happy to share. And what I'll be happy to do is maybe talk about the evolution of human resources over my last twenty-five years of being in the profession and working with so many diverse industry companies and global organizations over that period of time. So I'll be more than happy to share that with you.

Julie Rieken:
Let's do it! So three types of, of HR leaders, how do you see it?

Tony Perlingieri:
So I hate to use the expression, but maybe we start off with back in the day. So back in the day, human resources was originally called personnel, which means I'm really dating myself a bit, this is a long time ago, but you know, the personnel leader or the personnel executive was really somebody who, you know, … to help, to support that organization. I think that very often companies weren't exactly sure where quote personnel needed to report into. Sometimes it reported into finance, sometimes it reported into legal, but the reality is it was a necessary and important component of the business. But I think it was really much more focused on, maybe we do some recruiting, maybe we do some policy administration, such as employee handbooks and benefit administration and benefit design. Back in those days, we didn't call it ….., we didn't call it learning and development, it was just training and training, of course, with, you know, very basic classroom training, and it was very, very different. And then fast forward, I think then we moved into the world of human resources and what I would call strategic business partners. These are really human resources, business partners, and leaders who work for organizations, who are very much an integral part of the business, who, a partner closely with their clients each and every day, whether it's on talent acquisition, whether it's on LND, whether it's about performance management, employee relations or whatever the important cultural objectives and issues are of an organization. Sometimes, however, some of those strategic business partners, sometimes may be due to no fault of their own because they haven't have a broader background, I think that's kind of where it kind of starts and maybe finishes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but they may not necessarily have the opportunity to work for some, you know, really fast-forward, progressively-thinking, strong-strategic vision types of CEOs and C-suite folks who really would have taught them a lot more about the business. My experience is an example because I've worked for five or six different industries in my career. It's really given me a much more robust background and a variety of different industries, so that is maybe a much better business person. So I understand retail, I understand management consulting, I understand manufacturing, supply chain distribution, and everything that has to do with operations. And when you have those kinds of experiences and a variety of different industries, it automatically elevates you to a different level, and I'm not talking about title, I'm talking about your really, your institutional knowledge about the business and really about what it is to take to understand what's going on in the company. When you've had the opportunity with the human resources to participate in things like reengineering and organizational development, as well as merchants and acquisition and really looking, you know, identifying and integrating large and smaller businesses and coming to altogether together, it really changes the platform and the profile of your background because your experience really becomes a lot broader. In addition, most good strategic business partners typically always want to report directly to the CEO. And part of the reason for that is that we want to be obviously recognized as a key component and a key member of the team from a strategy perspective. It's not just about the tactical work, and every company has tactical work that needs to get done, hence, that really leads to me to the third level or the third person, which is really the human resources leader who happens to work to the, the business leader, I apologize, the business leader who happens to work in human resources and there is a difference. Those are the folks, we are the folks, we typically understand the P&L, we understand what it really means when companies go through consolidation, organizational development, succession planning, looking at the high potentials of an organization focusing on the employee engagement, what are the turnover metrics, what does that look like? I want to spend a moment, if I may, to be talking about attrition. Every company has it, and it's a different levels, okay? So attrition to me is really about focusing on how to be able to look at what's important, what's the pulse of the employee organization in terms of how are we not only winning the hearts and minds of our employees but how are we also retaining them? It's a different world that we live in today, not just for Generation X and Generation Y and the millennials, you really need to understand what makes it tick within your organization. So while I happen to be a great advocate and supporter of employee surveys, I also think if companies do employee surveys, they have to be prepared to be able to analyze what the results are and take action and create a solution, whether that be from a cost perspective or a strategy perspective. Otherwise, poll surveys can absolutely backfire because then employees feel like, well, we took the survey, nothing came of it, it was a complete waste of my time. Going back to attrition, and we've talked about this a lot throughout my career, let's say an organization happens to have 30 percent turnover as an example. Ok, well, that's an important number. And also, of course, how does that impact the P&L from a cost perspective, but we have to take it a step further. What is the 30 percent actually mean? One, where is it coming from? Is it coming from a specific location? Is it coming from a specific department? Is it coming from a specific leader? These are all things that are critical to analyze, as well as conducting exit interviews that are going to be fruitful and beneficial to the organization from a lessons-learned perspective. What are those things that we can, we've learned from a percentage perspective? Ok, so now we've learned it's coming from a location or department or a specific leader. It's not about certainly beating up the leader because they're having a heavy turnover. It's really taking a scale back and peeling back the onion and understanding what partnership, what coaching or training, what support can we give to that leader so that this way they can be set up for success so that we can reduce their turnover and make the employees that much happier. Conversely, let's also take a look at the managers or leaders of the company that have a very low turnover rate or location that there is a very low turnover rate. What are some of the best practices like? What? What are those managers? What are those leaders doing that really wants to connect to what their employees, that keeps their turnover low? So between looking at the turnover analysis and understanding the percentages and what we could do to help the people that maybe are challenged by some of the turnover. Let's also ingratiate and integrate some of the wonderful things that some of our leaders are doing and then help teach them, from a coaching perspective, and do some, you know what I call bonding and coaching so that there's some really nice activity at the leadership level on middle management level to help people set up for success. So I hope that describes to you how I see human resources, how it's evolved over the last twenty-five years, but also the various kinds of folks. And I think every human resources business partner or leader has a very different role in their organization. One of the things that I'm always very concerned about from my colleagues in human resources, and I hear this a lot is, you know, I think that there are folks who absolutely are very much an integral part of your business and very much embraced by the leadership team. But I very often hear about like, I don't always feel like my voice is always being heard. I don't feel like I'm fighting or I feel like I'm fighting for a seat at the table. And my response always is to say, if you have to fight to feel like you need to be, have a seat at the table, you're in the wrong organization. Clearly, they don't embrace human resources as a strategic leader that you need to be, want to be, and has to be in that particular organization, which means they're really viewing human resources as either just a strategic business partner or, I hate to use the expression, personnel. So I think it's really critical that people understand that before they join an organization as an HR leader, some of those things, that foundation, has to be addressed during the interviewing process, like what is your culture? How do you view your resources? What do you expect from the person that's in this particular job? The CEO and C-suite folks and people are going to be your teammates, they really need to have to address the question and the way that satisfies you to make sure that you're joining the right organization. If not, you're going to have a lot of frustration because it's going to be an uphill climb, because that means that if you don't feel like you are, have a voice or you feel that you don't have a seat at the table, that, the expression of I want to feel like I have a seat at the table is so archaic and so old fashioned. And the fact is, we don't talk about those things anymore, it should be automatic. So I hope that helps.

Julie Rieken:
That was fantastic. So I love the evolution, Tony, that you're talking about, about the three types of leaders in HR going from personnel, employee handbooks and policies, into strategic business partners, into the third type, which is hopefully today, which is business leaders that happen to work in HR, who understand the P&L and the and the culture of an organization and all of those components, so knowing that and seeing your experience, I was hoping to talk, to ask you for three stories today. Maybe, and I'll just kind of outline what these stories are, and Tony, if you could give us these three stories just from your seat, I think we'd all be super interested in hearing your voice on it. So maybe a story on the State of the Union, what are you seeing in the State of the Union and HR today? The second story might be we've all experienced attrition and resignation and rehiring in this market, it's a part of where we are, what have you seen? Employees seem to have the upper hand, let's just talk about what have you seen that's interesting to you. Do you have any stories around that? And then the third one might be employers. What are employers doing in response? Have you seen anything creative that employers have done in response to today's markets? So those are the three questions, and I'm super excited to hear anything that you might have experienced in these three areas. Let's start with the first one. Can you just talk to us about the state of HR in today's market? What do you see?

Tony Perlingieri:
Sure. Well, I think I can maybe give you maybe a few different perspectives. One, because I do have a fairly large network and I speak with a lot of my HR colleagues either that I've met through the years through networking meetings where I've worked with. I typically hear a lot of this and I don't necessarily know if this is just, maybe just a very myopic view towards HR, but maybe the marketplace in general. But I can tell you this, you know, one of the beauties of when an executive recruiter, regardless of what level they're at, is partnering with a human resources leader for an opportunity, if they are representing them to a company, is that if they're truly strategic and smart, regardless of the outcome of those interviews, they're going to want to know that they can build a really good relationship with that HR professional because that HR professional is always going to remember that particular recruiter, how they were partnering with them, how they were supporting them, how they would coach them with them, and ultimately, of course, demonstrating a level of respect and being really an ombudsman between themselves and the company that they're representing the candidate with. Unfortunately, that does not always happen. And what I've been seeing really more over the past two years during our time of pandemic is that I think there's been a real breakdown about how, not all, but some executive recruiters are both treating human resources leaders and professionals in general through what I call ghosting situations, no follow-up. I mean, the reality is those candidates are going to have a …, once they either become employed or become, gain respect, and they were truly a partnership so that when they're doing recruiting for their company, they're going to want to remember that particular individual and know that there is a level of respect and partnership that took place to continue the relationship. So that's one piece I do want to say, because I hear this almost every single week. I hear some new story which completely, you know, doesn't surprise me, but it's just really very unfortunate. That said, I do believe that not every candidate, regardless of whether you're an HR warrior in other functional areas, are going to be the perfect fit for every organization. But it is the delivery and how everyone is treated is absolutely critical because even if someone does not land a position or they were not the right fit for an organization, and I use the word fit loosely because I think everybody's got a definition of what fit means. I think it's important still to turn that process into a coaching opportunity for people so that they get feedback so that they're in a better position to interview maybe a lot better or differently with a different organization. So very often we all hear, you know, whether company interviews a candidate or recruiter interviews and we get the feedback from the company, they'll say, well, gee, I understand I'm not getting the job or I'm not that, not moving forward, is there anything you could share with me that I can learn from? That I can benefit and what we normally get is nothing. So I think that there's a fear, whether from a company or a recruiter, to give very constructive feedback so that people can learn from that, you know, in the, in the litigious world in which we live in. I think people are very concerned about what they say and who they say it to. But on occasion, I would say the minority folks will provide that kind of constructive feedback. I do that all the time because I'm looking to have long term relationships with people, whether it's for this job, another job, I'm working for a company or whatever it is I'm doing. Those are the things that people remember. And very often that's kind of constructive feedback that it's given to somebody during the course of an interview process, regardless of what the outcome is, is usually very beneficial and will help them in preparing them for their next opportunity. So while I didn't need to go off on that, I can tell you that this is a real concern for me as an as a senior HR leader and as somebody who does a tremendous amount of recruiting in this part of the world and been on the receiving end as well, I don't think that people are getting really positive, constructive feedback to help them or to get any feedback at all, and a lot of cases people are getting ghosted, it is the number one disrespectful thing that I hear from people all the time. I've even heard of situations where companies have interviewed a candidate and they said they're ready to make an offer and the candidate never hear from them again. Like, how can that happen? We all recognize there could be budgetary concerns, Ok. The organization is reorganized, Ok. Maybe the organization is downsizing, OK, but communicate at least say something, as opposed to nothing at all. So I hope that helps, at least from, from an HR perspective, I think it is really. And then the last piece kind of reflects back to my earlier comment, Julie, which is, I think from an HR leadership perspective, you need to really know who you are as an HR professional, what is it that you feel is a gap in your background? Where do you think you need to continue to evolve and learn? And then when you take your next job, make sure that it's a position that you will continue to stimulate you, where you can evolve and grow and learn something from it, because maybe you didn't have that in your previous position or position prior to that. And if you're still, were struggling previously with the seat at the table comment, then clearly you want to work for a company that's not like that.

Julie Rieken:
Super interesting. That is a really interesting commentary on the State of the Union, especially in a tough recruiting market, so that's awesome. Thank you for that story. Ok, two more stories, Tony. Tell me a story, something that you may have seen, you can feel free to redact a name if, if you need to, just thinking about employees right now have, we've talked about this attrition? They've got the upper hand in terms of where do they want to go? What are they looking for? Tell us what you've seen. Have you seen anything interesting from the employees perspective in terms of what employees want or need in today's market?

Tony Perlingieri:
Sure. I think I can actually dissect that in a couple of different ways for you, Julie. First, I want to start with the technology world. I don't think that this will come as a surprise to you or anybody that's listening to this, the number one area that every company is challenged, in both its attraction and retention, is technology folks. The technology industry has been so overly inflated over the past year to year and a half and continues to be so that I can tell you that anybody that is in a tech role is being recruited and, hate to use the expression, but headhunted by other organizations or by executive recruiters for like literally 30 to 40 percent above the market. So it's really happening. So just to give you a sense of things without, you know, narrowing it down to just titles, so UX designers, software engineers, front-end and back-end developers, software architects, CTOs, chief information officers, data analysts, data engineers and I'm just naming a few areas, you all know that every organization has supposed to have, has to have a certain level of technology. So I would say, well, I happen to be an advocate from a recruitment perspective. I think that job postings are OK. I think it's great for branding and it's great for marketing of a company. But you're not going to find technology people where some of the more difficult positions, just through postings, you're going to have to go aggressively tenaciously after passive candidates who are not necessarily in the market and go after them very aggressively to pull them out of an organization to be bringing them to your organization. Because if we're just going to sit there and wait for postings, the jobs are going to be open for months and because the market has been so inflated, much of the technology folks, as well as a lot of professionals, are sitting tight with their current organizations because they're either doing very, very well or they're waiting for their bonus or because of the pandemic, there's some nervousness, I can share that with you. There is some because I've heard this from a number of candidates that I've recruited. You know, I'm really interested in the job, Tony, but I'm a little bit nervous that if I leave, even though I don't like my job anymore, I'm not stimulated or I'm not learning if I go to this opportunity that you're talking about, I'm concerned that I could be, you know, last one in, first one out, if there's a reorganization or there's a layoff. So I think that they're in the marketplace, whether it's technology or otherwise. I do think that there are employees who may not necessarily be thrilled about what they're doing, but they're sitting tight in their current organization, one because it's now a year-end so, some companies are paying bonuses out of a big bonus. But in another case, because I think there's such a concern about, hey, I know what I have here in, kind of the devil I know versus the devil I don't know, I'm going to continue to stay here and maintain what I have now, even though ….. And then there's the second piece, which I think is really important. I think we saw a lot of this during the pandemic, but it still happening. Some people, some employees accept jobs for paycheck, not for a career. You have to know when you take accepting a position which job isn't for you. Some people have to take a job because they have to pay their bills and they have to live their life, and there's no criticism to that. So as a result, it's the paycheck. There are another group of folks who would only look to make a change because they think that the opportunity that's being presented to themselves could be an opportunity for career development, whether it's in technology, new evolution, leadership, whatever. And generally that person is somebody that's working for a company that has little or no career pathing or succession planning, and no one has actually sat down with them and tell them what their future is all about. So I do think that onboarding is absolutely critical to the hiring piece for every new organization, every new employer that joins the organization. People need to know if the moment they get walking what we're all about, but hey, I want to let you know our company is very supportive of career pathing, succession planning, and your manager is going to be talking a little bit about what those career path opportunities could look like when you're with the company for for a period of time. So I hope those perspectives at least answer the second question.

Julie Rieken:
I cannot express enough how much that resonated with me personally and our organization, all of the, all of the things that you talked about in terms of employees and some of the technical roles that are out there, I was both crossing my eyes, clapping my hands and crying simultaneously, was just echoing your sentiments, yes, we've experienced this and I think that's, I think it's universal. So really resonated and that's super helpful, I love that story. Ok, last story, Tony. Tell me about employers. What have you seen that's created from an employer perspective in response to today's market? Have you seen anything interesting happening?

Tony Perlingieri:
Yeah, this piece, I don't think it's going to come as a surprise to anybody that's listening to this. You know, what we learned in the last two years is that we know that working virtually, working hybrid, working remotely, whatever words you want to use, can be done and can be done successfully, we do know that. I do think that there are organizations that were much more traditional in nature that didn't believe in working virtually. They viewed it as an inconvenience, a nuisance. If somebody working from home, it should be to the benefit of just our top performers, not necessarily the rest of the organization, oh, and how do we know that they're working from home or working remotely? How do we know? How do we measure their performance success? How do we know that they're meeting our KPIs? How do we know that they're not wasting time and they're really not focusing on the job? These are all the things that I think traditionally we're going around in senior level of people's heads about why it just doesn't work, well it was thrust on us. Like it or not, it was thrust on us, and we have certainly demonstrated that we know that it can successfully be done. And going back to your question, I think that more organizations are slowly emerging more toward, I would say, the hybrid approach. I think that a balance of working in an office where people are able to recreate synergistic relationships with each other, team relationships with each other is very much something that has been coveted. I can tell you, I live in New York, there are thousands of people, thousands of people that are single, living in a one bedroom apartment or studio apartment. And during this crisis, unfortunately what they saw in their …. So the fact is, now that they have the opportunity to come to an office a couple of days a week, that was prior to last week or two, things have kind of escalated a little bit, but having the opportunity of having a balance of both, I will tell you that the companies that I'm supporting, I'm supporting four or five companies that most of the organizations have now moved more towards the hybrid approach because they do believe in having some office time with each other, spending time, I can tell you the last two years there were thousands of companies that people, you know, accepted a job, they were working for an organization for a year or two, and they never met their teammates, ever. The only way they met them is this way, right? So now, you know, so the fact that they had that opportunity to engage in that, I think, was really positive. I want to talk about some creative things, that I will tell you that commuter benefits has been a major plus. A lot of companies have instituted commuter benefits regardless of where their operation or where their office happens to be, it's encouraging people to come back to the office because that was one of the things that people said, well, you know, now that I've been doing it, this is a far greater cost. And you know, you could in theory, either from an HR or business perspective, say, well, why should we have to do commuter benefits? This is a condition of their employment. You know, we didn't, we didn't say that you needed to work from home, we said, you need to be working in the office, right? But the reality is, is that I think more companies today are in fact enlisting in commuter benefits, which I think has been very helpful to do some of the cost and really encouraging people to come back to the office, whether that be by car, whether it be by transportation, mass transportation, train, bus, boats, however it is just to get to the office, I think that there has also been some other interesting things, I think we talked about this a little bit before. There are two things that I think have to happen for employees from a retention perspective. One, I do think that the first 90 days to six months when people join a company, there has to be a pulse follow up. Both human resources and the leaders have to sit down, and I'm not just whether it's virtual or in-person and sit down and kind of get a pulse like, how are things going? You know, you've been with us for 60 days now, you've been with us for 90 days now. You know, are you getting enough from your manager or if it's, you know, if it's an HR person. Tell us about the culture, are you assimilating well to the culture? Are you having any challenges? How are things going with your teammates? How is it going with your manager? These are all things, it's the opposite of the exit interview, right? I think it's really critical because, you know, they've joined the organization now, we'd like to make sure that their expectation of what they thought the job was and the culture is being met. And if it hasn't been met, what do we need to do? What do we need to hear to work on? So I do think the first 90 days to six months, I think, is really, really critical, especially in the early phases of an employee's tenure. Conversely, I'm a very strong advocate of the town hall meetings, whether that be virtually or in person. I'm a very strong advocate of focus group meetings. So, you know, you could sit there and say, you know, you could do a lot of those stay conversations in the great resignation of this world. But if you're having regular focus group meetings, whether they be monthly or quarterly, that is as good if not better, than doing an employee survey. Because what you're really doing is you're putting people together in a room usually facilitated by an HR leader and maybe on Senior person, could be the CEO, it could be a COO, it could be someone senior and we're talking about. And then before the meetings occur, you're soliciting for the employees, what are some of the things you'd like to hear about and talk about? But also the company comes with an agenda to of maybe three or four key questions about things. And then there's a, you know, for lack of other words, it's a little bit old term, but then there's a wrap session for, you know, for an hour to maybe an hour and a half. And then we start to listen about the things that are really going on with employees and things that are important, such as one of the things that I did in my previous career, but we did in a classroom, but now it's being done in some companies, lunch-and-learns, it's a nice way, right? It's a little, it may sound a little bit old fashioned, but it's a nice way to engage people if they can't be in the office virtually so that this way, maybe, maybe once a month or twice a month, there's a specific topic that employees can actually listen to. And there's maybe a subject matter expert, whether that be internally or externally, that's brought in to talk to employees, and then you have an open forum about whatever the topic is and then you throw it out into a Q&A, this breaks up the workday really nicely for employees, it keeps them engaged. You can see them, they can see you. You can have some fun and some humor because the reality is is, you know, whether it's 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day on a computer, there's only so much you can get from that talking, right? So you kind of lack of other words, it's got to break up the Yankees a little bit, right? I think it's really important. So these are some of the things that I think are important, but I do think lunch and learns, I do think that focus group meetings, I think, are really, really critical to not just help with retention and engaging employees, but it sets the tone for your culture, and it also makes the company that much more fun to work for. You know, you could do things like, OK, we're having a virtual happy hour, OK, I'm not adverse to that, you know, everybody has a drink at five o'clock on a Thursday, that's OK. We're all getting together, socially it's fine, but there's only so far you can do it in a virtual setting, … going back to the office in one of the days that they come back, they do have a, like a happy hour kind of thing, or they have a food thing, a lot of food industry companies have like a food thing, you know, they create these recipes and everybody participates tasting it, that kind of thing. But you know, you could do it a lot of other companies, even if it's not a food company. So I feel like I've kind of blabbering away a little bit, but I hope this has been insightful.

Julie Rieken:
Oh my gosh, this is a gold mine. I can't wait to give our our listeners a recap and some of the lists of ideas that you've shared and some of the stories. Tony, this has been super helpful about the state of the HR industry, and your experience is really played well in terms of providing an overview for our listeners about some things they can do, things they can think about and some of the changes in HR. This has been amazing, I've had a good time, thank you!

Tony Perlingieri:
I'm really glad that you had a good time and I'll, I'll leave off this final comment. If you're not having fun enjoying what you're doing, get out of it and do something else.

Julie Rieken:
Ok, that's a great piece of advice! Tony, I hope things are well in New York, I want to wish you a Happy New Year and very grateful for the time you spent with us today. Thank you.

Tony Perlingieri:
It's my pleasure.

PeopleStar Podcast Outro:
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